
Article
Artbound
Of Oil Fields, Neon Signs and Tree Shade: The Fires That Fuel Los Angeles
Essayist D.J. Waldie explores the legacy of the fire element on the landscape of Los Angeles.

Article
Artbound
Lost Hills and Wandering Cemeteries: The History of Land Beneath L.A.
Essayist D.J. Waldie digs into the story of the land beneath Los Angeles — earthworms, human remains, liquid gold and all.

Article
Artbound
It's Complicated: Water and Los Angeles
Essayist D.J. Waldie unfurls the complexities of water in Los Angeles, from trickles to torrents.

Article
Artbound
The Curiously Magical Air of Los Angeles
Essayist D.J. Waldie explores the beguiling and often contradictory qualities of air in Los Angeles.

Article
Lost LA
Fantastic! — L.A.’s Architecture of Dreams
The benign climate of Los Angeles, the excellent highways, the desire to escape into an alternate reality and the skills of Hollywood designers were material causes of our architecture of fakery, informing how donuts, ice cream and pianos were sold.

Article
Lost LA
Different Dreamers: What It Means To Be a Californian Today
The optimistic essence of the California's golden dream endures — as it should — but the future of the state depends on Californians dreaming differently.

Article
Lost LA
The Garden of Paradise: Los Angeles' Lost, Edenic Biergarten
In the 1850s-70s, an elaborately themed garden surrounded the town's most eccentric building, the Round House.

Article
Lost LA
When Southern California Reinvented Itself as "Semi-Tropical"
L.A. once sold its climate as "semi-tropical" – a term that emphasized the uniqueness of its nature. Semi-tropical was semi-miraculous.

Article
Lost LA
Murder in Old Los Angeles
L.A. for a generation was extraordinarily violent, even more violent than frontier towns more famous in Western lore.

Article
Lost LA
Flappers and Indians in the Dream City: The Jazz Age Ends in Long Beach
The Pacific Southwest Exposition embodied the spirit of 1920s Hollywood: spectacle for its own sake, cheerful vulgarity, and commercial hard sell.